Mumbai: A 23-year-old fashion model and a small-time actor, who had Miss Chennai crown to her name, was found murdered at her rented flat here, police said on Wednesday.

Bidushi Dash Barde, who hailed from Odisha but was brought up in Chennai, was found brutally killed in her apartment in suburban Andheri last night. Her software engineer-husband Kedar found the body which bore injury marks, inflicted by a sharp-edged weapon, on her neck and chin, they said.

Robbery has been ruled out as the motive since no valuable was missing from the house, police said, adding there were no signs of a forced entry, indicating the assailant was known to the victim.

According to Bidushi's father, who is an Air Force official, his daughter had also worked in a number of South Indian films.

After returning from work at around 8 pm, Kedar (26) entered the apartment using a duplicate key as repeated knock on the door did not elicit any response. He found Bidushi, a diabetic, lying in a pool of blood outside the bedroom. Kedar had left home at around 7.45 am, police said.

He alerted the neighbours and Bidushi was taken to a nearby private hospital where she was declared dead before admission, said V D Bhoite, Senior Inspector at D N Nagar Police Station.

Initially, police suspected Bidushi may have collapsed due to diabetes-related complications and suffered fatal injuries after falling on a glass showcase. However, the post- mortem report showed she was stabbed, following which police registered a murder case.

According to police sources, a neighbour told the investigators that she had seen a man at her house for a while on Tuesday afternoon.

Kedar and Bidushi had a love marriage three years ago and they moved to Mumbai one and half years ago. Police were collecting CCTV footage from the building.